Hi Conch-L folks, I had the same problem that Dan has.  I’m not adept enough
to build my own data base.  I was hand writing all of my labels for my
shells.  I have a large enough collection that it was difficult to remember
if I had a shell or not when I was presented with 100's of shell for sale at
the Pacific North West Shell Club meeting.  I had no easy way to sort for a
particular location nor for a particular collector, genus, species or
family.
All of that changed for me due to a Christmas present from my daughter this
year.  She purchased a copy of "Shell Collection Management System" Version
2011 by David Berschauer for me [available from Sanibel Shellers for $100].
I've been using it for about three months now to keep data on my collection.
It has many features that I like very well.  I can easily select family
names, genus, species names and Authors from lists already loaded into the
program.  So if the family is Muricidae for example I type in Mu and the
list of possibilities come up [Actually only one --Muricidae] so I double
click and go on to the next box Genus where I type in Cer [here I have
--Ceratostoma, Cerion, Cerithidea, Cerithiopsis, Cerithium and Cerodrillia]
so double click on Ceratostoma.  You get the idea.  This saves me a ton of
time and eliminates lots of mistakes in typing scientific names.  Even if I
just used it for printing labels it would be worth the money.  If there's a
new genus [not in the program] just type it in one time and save it and it's
automatically added to the pick list for the next time.
Is it perfect? No, but it's way better than what I was doing.  One problem,
for example is that there's currently no way to print multiple copies of the
same label or to print six different labels from the list if they are not
concurrent.  Adding Families is tricky because they go into the program in
taxologic order.  David has been wonderful and responsive to solving this
problem for me by e-mail.   Overall I'm very pleased and can recommend this
program to you all.  Bert Bartleson, President PNWSC, Olympia, WA

From: Conchologists List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Daniel Parrish
Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2012 5:10 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [CONCH-L] Top software for cataloging shells on computer

Dear Conch-L members,
   Can someone kindly direct me to the link for information on the better
software available for cataloging one's collection on a computer. I've tried
google and not had much success. I know this thread has come across several
times, but I can't seem to find in the archives of Conch-L. Any help will be
appreciated or if you have suggestions, feel free to contact me at my email
address [log in to unmask]

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